Enclosure II.
Memorandum on the Salary Scales for Senior Officers
in the Hong Kong Education Department
сору
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The Senior Members of the Hong Kong Education Department desire to bring to the notice of Government some aspects of the report of the Salaries Commission with which they are gravely con- cerned. In general their criticism is this: that senior educational officers have been graded in a way which places them in an inferior financial position to that of other professional officers in the service of the Hong Kong Government.
In the past, there has been a tendency to minimize the full significance of educational work in the Colony. A perpetua- tion of this tendency is implied by the inferior remuneration of senior Education officers and is extremely undesirable. The grading of educational officers on a scale lower than that of officers in other professions causes a lack of prestige which, rightly or wrongly, leads the Chinese to consider that Hong Kong does not assess educational work as of the highest importance. It is unavoidable too that such lack of recognition of their work will create feelings of grievance and disappointment among educational officers; that they willresent the stigma of professional inferiority which is implied and that there will be a resultat loss in enthusiasm and initiative. Furthermore such a policy is not in conformity with the recommendations of the recent conference. of U.N.E.S.C.0. held at Nanking at which the following resolution was adopted: "It is considered that for the attraction of an adequate number of able modern trained teachers, teachers' salaries must be raised to an adequate level both with regard to basic subsistence and to salaries in other professions."
2.
An examination of the scales recommended for educational officers, and a comparison of these with other scales, discloses three distinct ways in which it appears that the educational profession has been assessed as if it were one demanding lower qualifications and pearing lighter responsibilities than those entailed in other professions. They are:-
3.
I.
II.
III.
The grading of the Director of Education on a lower salary than than for the heads of other major Government Departments.
The complete lack of Super-Scale Posts, apart from that of Director.
The fact that the time scale for Masters:
(a) Ceases at a lower maximum ($1,420 per month) than other comparable professional Departments ($1,540 per month);
(b) Commences at a lower starting point than other comparablā professional Departments ($800 per month compared with $880 per month for Engineers, Surveyors, Royal Observatory and Wireless etc.)
to be
With regard to I The Salary of the Director of Education. It is noted that the Salaries Commission recommanded that the Director of Medical Services, the Director of Public Works, the Superintendent of Imports and Exports (a Cadet officer, class 1), the Post Master General (a Cadet officer, class 1), the Commissioner of Police, the Commissioner of Labour, and the Head of the Sanitary Department (a Cadet Officer class 1) shall all receive a salary of $2,400 per month.
The "ducation Department is one of the largest spending Departments and employs a large and varied staff of Europeans and Chinese. The Director bears the responsibility not only of the routine administration and the co-ordination and implementation of
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